


What Might Have Been

by KestrelShrike



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Daddy Issues, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Vignettes, prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 17:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10882038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/pseuds/KestrelShrike
Summary: This is for @meflashfanwork based on the theme ‘what might have been.’ What if Alec had survived and Wren Ryder wasn’t the Pathfinder, but just one of the companions? How would her relationship with Jaal changed? It’s a series of vignettes, essentially, because anything else would be ungodly long.





	What Might Have Been

Alec Ryder. Pathfinder, hope of the Initiative, pseudo-leader of the human ark. All titles he wore with ease, carrying hopes and dreams on his shoulders as if they weighed nothing at all. Things he could not include in his list of titles: diplomat, which made meeting the angara an interesting complication, a wrinkle in his plans that he clearly didn’t approve of.

Thus, the angara representative, Jaal, had ended up more or less dumped in the laps of Scott and Wren Ryder. “Babysit him. I don’t have time for this,” Alec said, already turning and stalking off. Wren and Scott exchanged a look and both shrugged simultaneously.

“You know I’m not much better than dad. I leave this in your capable hands.” Clapping his sister on the shoulder, Scott left her with Jaal.

“Your father- he is always like this?” It was the first thing Jaal said to her, and Ryder couldn’t determine if he was serious or not. A beat of tension, and then Jaal smiled at her, hesitantly, and Ryder let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding and smiled back.

Bashful in the face of having to confront Alec’s dubious charms, Ryder nodded reluctantly. “Pretty much. He takes getting used to.” It was unfortunate that this was Jaal’s first real taste of humanity, but it wasn’t as if there was much she could do about that. As usual, she could only pick up the pieces and try to smooth out Alec’s rough edges, making sure he didn’t offend too many people in his wake. It was, after all, the main reason she was even allowed on his precious Tempest in the first place. Everyone had to pull their own weight, and though it never went said out loud, it was understood that the Ryder twins were there to be the charm and charisma that the Pathfinder lacked.

***

From the start, Ryder had alternative reasons for playing nice with Jaal. She couldn’t help but notice he was good looking, even if he was alien. Maybe it was the fact that he was so incredibly alien that made him appealing; either way, six hundred years of no action could do things to a girl.

Jaal didn’t trust her. That much was clear. He trusted Alec even less, and while he seemed to get along with Scott, he also held himself aloof, refusing to answer certain questions about his family and about angaran culture until some mythical proof of trust could be earned.

“I’d like to get to know you better. Privately,” she stuttered out one afternoon, and to her surprise Jaal looked her up and down appraisingly and finally replied.

“I would like that,” he said, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. That’s where it all began.

***

It wasn’t until they rescued the Moshae that Jaal truly began to warm up to any of the crew, and Ryder hadn’t even been along for the ride. “It’s too dangerous,” Alec told her. “You and your brother are staying behind and staying put. No arguments.” All this before she could even open her mouth, stuck on the ship and fuming as her dad left with Jaal and Drack, leaving behind a restless ship that could only try and communicate with comms.

“I have utmost faith that your dad will pull this off,” Cora said, trying to sound reassuring and trying not to look annoyed that she hadn’t been brought along.

“Of course he will. Dad is perfect.” Rolling her eyes, Ryder stalked off to her bunk to flip through an old-fashioned, physical book, flipping the same two pages back and forth for an hour before giving up and trying to watch a vid instead. She should be there. What if Alec was hurt? What if Jaal was hurt? Was it wrong that the second thought made her more worried than the first? Damn it, she was going to fall into this too deeply if she wasn’t careful. It was time to distance herself, to not think about what the angara looked like as he smiled, how good of a shot he was, how he had helped her take apart her sniper rifle the other day, holding intricate pieces between two fingers with surprisingly delicacy. Definitely don’t think about his hands.

Damn it.

***

“We have to deal with this Aksuul figure before he causes any further trouble. Wren, you’re coming with us.” It was a tacit admittance that he was diplomatically challenged, the closest Alec would ever come to admitting weakness. It was also the only time he had been willing to drag out his daughter and Jaal on a mission at the same time, preferring to keep them separated.

“Remember not to fraternize with the angara, Wren. Keep your head.” That had been a few days ago, a frown etched onto his features, permanent lines creased downward. Wren could only blush and shrug, muttering polite deferrals that sounded half-hearted even to her own biased ears.

“Ryder, you must listen and trust me about Aksuul. I can’t trust that Alec would,” Jaal whispered to her as they finally left the Tempest, ready to face whatever the steaming jungles held.

She nodded but bit a corner of her lip, doubtful. “I’ll do my best. You know what dad’s like.”

“And that is what I’m afraid of.” There wasn’t time for them to say more; already Alec was moving forward, SAM propelling him into feats of athleticism that Wren couldn’t possibly even contemplate.

With Alec leading the way, there was no time for quiet contemplation or examining their surroundings. A cursory look, enough to establish that Jaal’s family wasn’t there, and they moved on, Aksuul’s voice a distant, booming background whenever they entered a building. Every time she wanted to stop to look more closely at something, Alec pushed her onward, and though Jaal shook his head, there was nothing either could do to stop the Pathfinder once he had a mission firmly in mind. This was what he had trained for and he was a man of action, not of contemplation. Putting the picture together didn’t matter as much as getting results, and he was determined to do that much. Ryder strongly suspected that Alec didn’t even care about rescuing Jaal’s family so much as he did getting on the angara’s good side; his attempts at placate them still weren’t going well, and few of them trusted him.

Every angara killed felt like a blow to Ryder. How did Jaal feel, killing his own people? He and Alec had identical facial expressions; calm, determined, though Jaal’s was underwritten with a current of worry. Bullets flew as all three sought cover behind some crates, pushing ever closer to their goal. “Wait! I know those voices.” Jaal held a fist up to halt their fire.

Alec kept firing in steady pulses, either having not heard or ignoring it entirely. “Dad, stop!” Once again, there was no response until Ryder physically shouldered him, causing a shot to veer off wildly. Alec turned to look at her angrily, scowl only deepening.

“Dad. Jaal knows them.”

“Lathoul! Wait! Stop!” What followed was a terse exchange of words, a stray shot that rang out… and then hugging. A great deal of hugging, none of which involved Alec and all of which left Ryder faintly bemused. Yet when Jaal sought out a human to show his family that humans weren’t all bad, he didn’t reach for Alec, instead grabbing Ryder by the arm and dragging her into the spotlight, showing her off with an air of faint pride, making her feel Alec’s glare radiating heat through the back of her skull.

Another flash of action- shooting, defusing bombs while Alec watched over her shoulder, shouting out terse commands. A bullet slammed into her shields, sending Ryder back, but she shook it off, fingers shaking as she pressed levers and flicked switches, trying to save this piece of angaran history, knowing that if she didn’t, the failure would rest squarely on her shoulders. They would never blame their Pathfinder, but it was too easy to blame his daughter.

And then Askuul, pointing a gun at Jaal, and Alec pointing a gun at Aksuul. Jaal’s earlier words, his emphasis on trusting him, came back to mind, but Alec’s finger was already hovering near the trigger, and he rarely missed. Ryder could only do something incredibly stupid, something Alec would yell at her about back in the Tempest- she stepped in front of his gun, preventing him from taking the shot, and in doing so, she had to watch Aksuul shoot a single bullet at Jaal, skimming the surface of his flesh and passing on.

A tense moment, and then diffusion. How could everything have possibly turned out okay?

****

Later, she and Jaal leaned against each other, her hand reaching up to touch where he had shot.

“You stopped your father,” Jaal finally said to her.

“I was so worried.” Even now, she could feel Alec staring. Screw Alec. Right now, her dad was the least of her concerns.

“All wounds heal.” They leaned forward, and then Jaal broke away, arching the approximate region where brows would be to gesture at Alec. “I should let you two speak.”


End file.
